John McGaw wrote:
wrote:
Hi, all. Plant Select recommends the Chinese shrub called ma huang or
blue joint-fir, Ephedra equisetina, for us Westerners. (I'm in New
Mexico.) Bluish leafless stems, yellow flowers in spring, red berries
in summer (maybe only if you have a female plant), extremely
drought-tolerant. Strangely enough, I can't find plants at local
nurseries or on the Web. Does anyone know where you can buy it?
Does anyone know why it's so hard to find? I'm getting paranoid enough
to wonder whether it's because of the FDA ban on the stimulant
ephedrine, which E. equisetina seems to be the best source of.
Doing a google for "plant nursery Ephedra equisetina" (sans quotes of
course) turns up quite a few hits and at first glance some of them
certainly seem to be selling it.
Thanks for the reply. I hadn't thought of that combination. Not one of
the plausible hits I got is selling it retail in America, believe it or
not. ("Plausible" means "not on a page about legal highs or the flora
of Kyrgyzstan".)
Don't know how you feel about buying
plants that you can't lay hands upon first though.
That's usually not a problem for me, but if only half of these plants
have berries, it is something of a problem, and if you have to get two
(if you're lucky) to get the berries, maybe I'll be fine with ephedras
I can get locally even if they don't have berries.
--
Jerry Friedman